Tall Tales
by ProcrastinatingPalindrome
Summary: Denmark tells a young England the greatest bedtime story the world has ever known.


England usually didn't enjoy Denmark's visits. Denmark often brought bad things with him, like his vikings. England didn't like those vikings very much. But sometimes Denmark brought great things with him when he stopped by England's house. And sometimes, like today, he brought England's very favorite thing: stories.

"And then what happened?" England asked. His half finished bowl of soup was sitting in the dirt at his feet, forgotten. Denmark made a great show of stroking his chin thoughtfully, frowning across the fire at the tiny country before turning his attention back to his own soup bowl balancing on his knees.

"I dunno, maybe we should stop there," he drawled, plucking a chuck of meat out of the broth with his fingers and popping it into his mouth. "This story might be too scary for little babies like you."

"I am _not_ a little baby!" England cried angrily, and tried to puff himself up. He hated being so short. Being little seemed to invite other countries to come in and take over what little land he had.

"Okay, I just don't want to give you nightmares...again," Denmark said lightly.

"That was only one time, you...you git! ...A-and there were a lot of monsters in _that_ story."

"Yup, you can't have Ragnarök without a couple of monsters! But there are monsters in this story too, y'know."

"I don't care! I'm not scared at all. Not even a little bit!"

"Huh, if you say so. I'll remember that later when you're crying about how the monsters are gonna eat you. Now where was I..."

"Beowulf was fighting Grendel!"

"Ah, right! Okay, so they're duking it out in the hall, and I told you Beowulf didn't have a weapon on him, right? That's 'cause he thought it would be unfair to fight an unarmed monster with a sword or something. And he's just that awesome. So anyway, the two of them are fighting, and it's all getting pretty crazy, and the other guys are starting to think the two of them are going to tear the whole hall down!"

"R-really?" England gasped. His green eyes had gotten very big.

"Oh yeah, it was nuts," Denmark continued, waving his spoon around as though to elaborate just how 'nuts' it was. "So Beowulf's buddies, they figured they'd try to help, since they still had their swords and all. So they go in and start hackin' and slashin' at Grendel, but guess what?"

"What?" England asked, biting his fingernails.

"It didn't work! They couldn't hurt Grendel at all, because his skin was immune to human weapons and- ….is this getting too scary for you?"

"N-no! Keep going!"

"Alright, so everyone's thinking they're _really_ in trouble now and maybe even a hero like Beowulf can't beat this monster."

"But they were wrong, right?"

"Don't interrupt me. So, just when things were starting to look really bad, Beowulf grabs Grendel's arm _and rips the whole damn thing off! _It was so badass, you can't even imagine. And then Grendel makes this really awful sound and runs off to the swamp to go bleed to death and die. And then Hrothgar is all like, 'This is awesome, we should break out the booze and have a party now,' right? So everyone's having a great time and thinking that it's over now..."

"But it wasn't?"

"Hell no! See, Grendel's mom, she was a really gross monster too, and she wasn't too happy about Beowulf tearing her kid's arm off and all, so she gets all pissed off and shows up at the hall-"

"Wait a minute!" England interrupted, turning around to dig through his satchel. "I need to write this down. Let's see..parchment, ink..."

"The hell do you want to write this down for?" Denmark grumbled.

"_Listen! We have heard of the glory in bygone days of the folk-kings of the spear-Danes-_"

"What the fuck, that's definitely not how I was telling this story."

"But it sounds better like this!" England protested, and bent over the parchment on his knees, continuing to write...

------

"And that was how I wrote _Beowulf_," England slurred, and to his great credit, managed to not fall off his chair.

"You're so full of shit," America groaned from his left.

"I agree avec États-Unis on zis," France pipped up from the right.

"Well _sorry_ that you wankers are so _jealous _of my litat...litera....books. I did so write it, I was just too shy to sign my name on it. But if I hadn't been shy back then, school children would be reading _Beowulf_ by Arthur Fucking Kirkland."

"Do you have to be like this every time we go drinking, England? Really?"

"I sink 'e eez compensating for somesing."

"You both can just sod off."

America rubbed his temples and leaned back in his chair.

"How do you put up with this, France? I swear he gets worse all the time. Last week he was trying to tell me that all of Shakespeare's sonnets were written for _him_."

"If you sink zis eez bad, you should 'ear Angleterre going on about zat stupid pilgrimage 'e took to Canterbury..."

Historical Notes:

_Beowulf _was written some time between the 8th and 12th centuries and is set in Denmark. It's generally believed that the story was passed down orally, and it's unknown who finally put it down on paper. Authorship didn't really exist in those days (at least not as it does today), so it's rare that you'll find any Old English poetry that has a name on it.


End file.
